Saturday, August 13, 2011

The Great Taste of the Midwest is one of the premier beer festivals in the United States. On the second Saturday in August, over one hundred brewpubs and microbreweries from the Midwest come to beautiful Olin-Turville Park overlooking Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin, to share beer and good times with six thousand patrons.

It had rained heavily during the days before the August 2009 festival. Early Saturday afternoon, as the festival opened and a line of six-thousand festival-goers snaked around the grounds, the sun broke out. The field remained wet, and all those feet would soon trample the turf into mud. That didn't seem to faze the intrepid young lady pictured above. She, stylishly, attended in pumps.

The Great Taste of the Midwest is one of the better beer festivals in the US —one day only, well designed and staffed— featuring, naturally, only beers from the midwest US. (That's something more US beer festivals around the US should strive to emulate: maybe bring in the distant, but emphasize the local.)

This year's festival begins this afternoon. If you don't have tickets, you won't be getting any. Tickets for the 2011 Great Taste of the Midwest —the 25th annual running of the fest— have been sold out since May.